"Enserfification, It’s No Accident"
by Jim Kunstler
“Oh my God! Movable printed type! We must keep this from
the serfs lest they gain literacy and threaten the landed gentry!”
– "Family Guy"
“The moral and Constitutional obligations of our representatives in Washington are to protect our liberty, not coddle the world, precipitating no-win wars, while bringing bankruptcy to our people.” – Ron Paul. Okay, maybe Ron was a bit of a downer, but if he could see the average millennial staring at blankly at their TikTok® feed while wondering if ramen counts as a vegetable, he’d probably nod and say: “Told ya so.”
America isn’t only circling the drain, it’s installing a fancy gold-plated one, imported from China, because why not add insult to bankruptcy? Let’s talk about “Enserfification.” While I cannot find any reference to this word (I did find “enserfify”) on the Internet, A.I. claims that it’s okay, so that’s good enough for me even though Word™ draws an angry, squiggly line under it.
Enserfification is not quite feudalism, where the lord hands you a pitchfork and a plot of mud and some ugly facial moles in exchange for your firstborn. Nope, it’s sneakier. It’s the slow, corporate/bureaucratic boil where the middle class gets squeezed until the middle class plops, slowly mind you, into the ranks of a serf. Let’s face it, the middle class is shrinking, and those that are in it are not building dreams anymore. They’re just trying not to default on the electric bill for their bread and circuses Netflix™ indoctrination videos. And the statistics? They are brutal.
Those under 40 with a STEM degree and a car payment, life is hitting them like a tax audit from the IRS’s agent that they hired directly from the DMV because she regularly made Marine Drill Instructors cry. Let’s start with jobs.
Remember when Mom and Dad said, “Get a degree in engineering or computers, kid, and you’ll be set for life”? Yeah, that was before the H-1B visa tsunami turned Silicon Valley into a global import mall with accents thicker than a deaf Russian that learned English in South Carolina. In 2024 alone, the U.S. approved a whopping 399,395 H-1B petitions - basically a free-for-all green light for companies to hire cheaper talent from abroad instead of the fresh-faced Americans they just saddled with $100k in student debt. Oh, and did anyone mention that these invaders can bring their spouses, and that they can work, too? That 400,000 number is up 3% from the year before, because nothing says “meritocracy” like importing coders who mainly lie about their degree and qualifications.
Recent American college grads with physics degrees are sitting at a 7.8% unemployment rate, second-worst among majors. Computer engineering? 7.5%. Computer science? 6.1%.
These aren’t lazy trust-funders: these are they (mainly) guys who aced calculus while discovering new an unique ways to self-administer caffeine, only to hit the job market and find a “park’s closed, moose out front should have told you” meme. Why hire Johnny from Boston when you can snag Judgish from Bangalore for 30% less, besides, he’s the nephew of the HR lady?
Enserfification Step One: Lock the gates on opportunity, import infinity Indians, then blame the peasants for not climbing the walls.
Let’s move to step two... Cars are the great American symbol of freedom in the postwar era: cruising the open road with the wind in your hair and AC/DC® describing how to Shoot to Thrill. Me? Back then when I listened to AC/DC™, the neighbors did, too. Except now, that freedom costs more than a down payment on a small ranch would have in the 1980s, and I’m not exaggerating: the average new car price in 2025 is now solidly over $50,000. I have no idea who is buying cars at these prices, outside of federal governments, state governments, local governments and corporations.
Back in 2000, you could snag a reliable sedan for under $20,000. Oh, and that number is adjusted for inflation. But now, most people don’t buy cars with any view towards the price, they look at the monthly payment, so adding leather seats on a... pickup... becomes the norm.
Today? Forget it. Folks are hanging onto their rustbuckets like they’re family heirlooms, because the average age of vehicles on U.S. roads hit a record 12.8 years in 2025. The newest Wilder family vehicle is nearly a decade old. Why the delay? First, value. Most of the new cars are loaded with crap that I don’t value. Heated seats? A.I.-enabled cup holders? Sound systems that have monthly fees.?
The idea is to turn a “here, you bought a car, it’s yours” to “here, you bought a limited-term license to have title to a car that will require $47.50 monthly so it will report your driving habits and destinations to your insurance company without your consent”. Me? I’d much rather own a 2012 Civic™ with rubber floormats and a passenger-side electric mirror that doesn’t work.
This is Enserfification Step Two: Make mobility a luxury, so you’re stuck in your 30-minute commute hell, pondering if that cheap Prius® with just one dead owner from Craigslist© is haunted. (Spoiler alert: it is.) Just like the meme says: in 2030 you’ll own nothing, but you will represent a reliable monthly income stream because to the corporations and governmental entities, that’s what you are. Which is? A serf.
I could go on and on, but I’ve been wordy recently, and you get the picture. I detail housing and our lack of choices there (killed by legal and illegal immigration), federal, state, and local laws that never seem to get rolled back but keep moving in the direction where everything that isn’t mandatory will be prohibited and the other aspects of the subscription economy where a million companies want.
The middle class isn’t shrinking naturally. It is being pulverized into gig-economy paste on purpose on the twin altars of multiculturalism and corporate profits. Their solution: bread and circuses, updated for the smartphone age. How do they make the middle class go quietly onto that good night?
Cell phones that ping into dopamine oblivion,
YouTube® rabbit holes that make three hours vanish like your savings, and
Netflix queues longer than the line at the DMV.
It’s genius, really. Why allow the serfs to revolt when they can be made to doomscroll through cat videos and true crime docs that make their problems seem quaint? Distract the serfs and they’ll never notice the chains.
Enserfification isn’t inevitable. It’s engineered, and requires our consent to win. Don’t patronize businesses that use H-1B employees. Don’t patronize businesses that are owned by foreigners. And, yes, ramen is a vegetable."
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